America loves its con artists, at least when they're confined to the big screen. Within the past year alone, "The Good Thief," "Love the Hard Way," "Confidence," "Catch Me If You Can," "Poolhall Junkies" and "City of Ghosts" have all mined the con-man mystique. Add to that the new Nicolas Cage movie, "Matchstick Men," opening Friday.

But any con-game film invariably draws comparison to "The Sting." The film, which won 1973's best picture Oscar, reunited "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman as two Depression-era card sharks who concoct an elaborate scheme to trick their villainous mark (Robert Shaw). According to David Brown, one of the film's producers, "The Sting" thrilled audience members with its surprise ending.

"We were never sure when the audience would catch on. It was a magic trick wielded by the late George Roy Hill, who directed the movie, and of course, the ability of Newman, Redford and Robert Shaw to carry it out. The audience howled when the sting was exposed in the movie, yet it was almost a kind of joyous anger. They couldn't believe how they'd been taken in."

Brown is producing a musical adaptation of the 1988 con-man movie "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," to be directed by Jack O'Brien ("Hairspray"), as well as a film about Hollywood restaurateur to the stars Mike Romanoff, who, it turned out, was a fraud. "Mike pretended to be one of the Romanoffs from the Russian royal family," Brown says. "He carried it off with great class, and when Romanoff was exposed, Hollywood embraced him by saying, 'We're all impostors; we've all reinvented ourselves.' "

Given Hollywood's DNA, it's not surprising that con-man movies continue to thrive. "The original Hollywood was run, to a large extent, by rogues and impostors," Brown says. "When I was at 20th Century Fox, several producers had been prison guards who met our executives when they were doing time for tax evasion. The guards were rewarded for their kindly treatment by being made producers. There's nothing new in Hollywood about the con game."

Mel Brooks devised the ultimate show-business-as-con game conceit in "The Producers" (1968), which featured Zero Mostel as a lovably amoral Broadway swindler. The con persona also served as a charm showcase for Robert Preston in "The Music Man" (1962), George C. Scott in "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967), and James Garner, who played congenial cheats in "Skin Game" (1971) and "Maverick" (1994).

If "The Sting" and its period-piece predecessors romanticized con artists as twinkly-eyed rogues, the genre took a hard-boiled turn in the late '80s, courtesy of David Mamet's downbeat thriller "House of Games" (1987). It was followed by "The Grifters" (1990), an equally dark yarn starring John Cusack as a small-time hustler wrestling with incest issues (Angelica Huston played his con mom) while he plots a "long con" with a double-crossing sexual predator (Annette Bening).

In 1992, James Foley directed the film version of "Glengarry Glen Ross," Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a pack of lying salesmen. "To me," he says, " 'Glengarry Glen Ross' was like a nature documentary. It allows you to see men, stripped down, for better or worse, as animals. They're in suits, and they're not stabbing each other, and they're pursuing money instead of actual bison, but it's exactly the same thing. It wasn't about morality, in the same way you don't think about morality when you see a lion eating a deer."

Foley also directed "Confidence," released earlier this year, which starred Edward Burns as a small-time con artist who pulls off the scam of a lifetime to pay back a criminal boss (Dustin Hoffman). "In 'Confidence,' the group of men combine into a unit to achieve their goals, whereas in

'Glengarry,' it's every man for himself," Foley says. "But both stories are driven by the same idea, that we're all living in this capitalistic society where persuasion and seduction are the tools we use to survive."

Films like "Confidence" keep the anti-heroes sympathetic by making sure the audience knows the people being ripped off are themselves criminals. "Moviegoers are kind of schizophrenic," Foley says. "Yeah, they believe in a moral code, but at the same time, it's pleasurable to watch the wily common man on the outside who's able to penetrate to the center of things, manipulate the system and triumph over these people in the establishment who have gotten their money illegally. That makes it kind of guilt-free to watch people committing a bunch of crimes because they're still sympathetic."

Another way to give the con men some heart is by bringing family into the scenario. "Paper Moon" (1973) partnered Ryan and Tatum O'Neal as a father- daughter team of Dust Bowl grifters; "Traveller" (1997) cast Bill Paxton as mentor to Mark Wahlberg, who's struggling to change his gypsy ways. And Preston Sturges' romantic comedy "The Lady Eve" (1941) starred Barbara Stanwyck as a card shark who teamed with her dad to fleece Henry Fonda's gullible millionaire.

"The deception of other people means these con artists have no conscience, and that's a turnoff," says UCLA film historian Jonathan Kuntz. "Bringing a family connection into a con movie automatically ties us to these people because we see they're human beings with human problems. You root for them to repair their relations, sometimes by doing things together -- the family that plays together stays together, so you've got the parent teaching the craft, passing on their expertise."

There have been plenty of superb foreign films about con artists, dating back to Ernst Lubitsch's jewel-thief romance "Trouble in Paradise" (1932). Just last year, "Nine Queens" earned the best picture Condor Award, Argentina's Oscar equivalent, for its ingenious story about two petty hustlers who lie, cheat and steal in order to get their hands on a set of rare stamps.

But the con-man archetype seems to strike an especially resonant chord for moviegoers in the United States, Kuntz says. "There is something maybe uniquely American about a lot of these films because it's about people rising way above their stations and getting great wealth. In 'Catch Me If You Can,' a person leaves his troubles behind by impersonating other people. He's able to move upward in society, getting girls and everything else. It's about fulfilling the American dream, but with a twist."